A Mother for Matilda/The Boss and Nurse Albright Read online

  Josh delved in the nearby drawer, pulling out the requested cloths and shoving them at his sister. He stalked from the kitchen and returned shortly after with the phone. Vic was re-covering the wound. He thrust it at her.

  She rolled her eyes as she deftly wound the makeshift bandage in place. ‘Ring the station for me.’

  Josh paled as he punched in the numbers. ‘You want me to tell Dad?’

  ‘No. I’ll tell him.’ She finished with the wound and tied a clean dishcloth firmly around Ryan’s wrist to stem the flow of blood to the wound.

  Josh held out the phone to her. ‘Dad’s not there. It’s Lawson.’

  Vic frowned. What the hell was Lawson still doing at the station? They’d knocked off over three hours ago. Vic reached for the phone. ‘Hold on a sec,’ she said into the receiver.

  She directed Ryan to a nearby chair and pushed him into it. ‘You,’ she said to Josh. ‘Hold his arm up above his head like this.’ She supported her brother’s arm in the air and Josh took over.

  ‘Lawson?’

  ‘Victoria.’

  Apart from her mother, Lawson was the only person who’d ever called her by her full name and, as much as she grouched about it, secretly she adored it. As a six-year-old it had made her feel very grown up and today, with her brother’s blood drying on her hands, it gave her an added dash of courage.

  ‘Why are you still there? Where’s Dad?’ she said, staying close to her brothers.

  ‘He had some meeting in Brisbane to attend. I’m covering for him until he gets back. What’s wrong?’

  ‘Ryan’s practically severed his left middle digit. I could drive him to the hospital myself but I really think he needs a medical professional with him while I drive. Is there an ambulance free?’

  Lawson, well used to Ryan’s litany of injuries, didn’t even bat an eyelid. ‘How’d he do that?’

  Vic sighed. ‘Trust me, you don’t want to know.’

  Lawson grinned. ‘Is it haemorrhaging much?’

  ‘It has been. I’ve controlled the bleeding now though.’

  ‘Nine sixty’s available. I’ll call it in to Coms and be at your place in a few minutes.’

  Vic hung up the phone. ‘Lawson will be here in three.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Vic, I—’

  She slashed her hand through the air, bringing Ryan’s apology to an abrupt halt. ‘Don’t talk to me. Just be quiet.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Don’t,’ she snapped.

  Now the emergency was under control and she was away from sickening amounts of her brother’s blood other feelings flowed. Disbelief, anger, relief. She allowed herself to be a sister for a moment.

  ‘I can’t believe I raised you. How bloody stupid,’ she said to Ryan. ‘How am I supposed to go off to the other side of the world when you two are still acting like children? Hell, even little kids know not to play with knives. You’re nearly eighteen, for crying out loud. You’re supposed to be mature. Responsible. You’re supposed to be studying for your biology exam.’

  ‘Vic—’

  ‘I said don’t talk,’ she snapped again. Ryan was looking pale and she guessed from his blood loss he was a little shocked. The what-ifs were starting to circle.

  ‘I’ve worked all night, for Pete’s sake. All you had to do was let me sleep and be uninjured until I woke up. Is that too much to ask?’

  Ryan and Josh looked at their feet and shook their heads. ‘Dad’s gonna have a fit,’ she continued. ‘Do you think his blood pressure can take this?’ Their father was borderline overweight and on medication for his hypertension. They both shook their heads again. ‘I swear you two are going to be the death of him.’

  Moments passed in silence while she took stock. Ryan’s face was twisted into a permanent wince and she felt a momentary streak of sympathy. ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Ryan grimaced.

  The streak fizzled as quickly as it had arrived. ‘Good.’

  She pushed some hair off her face and realised her hand was shaking. The sound of a distant siren reached them and Vic had never heard a sweeter noise. Not that she thought Ryan was about to expire from blood loss, but he had lost a good amount of the red stuff and would definitely be anaemic. She wouldn’t be surprised if he required a transfusion.

  And had Lawson been much longer she might well have succumbed to the urge to do something drastic to prevent him from doing anything else so overwhelmingly stupid again.

  She put her hand under Ryan’s elbow and urged him up. ‘Come on. Walk. We’ll meet Lawson out the front. Keep your arm above your head.’

  ‘ Jeez, Vic, is your bedside manner always this good?’ Ryan grouched as he stumbled beside her.

  ‘No. I reserve this treatment for too-stupid-to-live teenagers.’

  Lawson pulled up at the Dunleavy residence, a place he’d been to hundreds of times since he’d taken up residence on the island. He killed the siren at the same time the trio reached the driveway and jumped down from the cab. Striding around the back, he opened the doors as Victoria and her brothers appeared at the rear.

  He took one look at a worried Joshua, an obviously chastised Ryan and a thunder-faced Victoria and made an executive decision. ‘Why don’t I look after Ryan in the back and you go and get cleaned up, put on your uniform and drive us in?’

  Vic was about to argue when she noticed Lawson’s eyes taking in her attire. Amidst the crisis she’d forgotten that she was in her pyjamas. Not that there was anything indecent about them—they certainly covered more than a lot of clothes did these days.

  Brief silky boxers with high scooped-up side seams and a shoestring-strapped grey singlet that didn’t quite meet the waistband of her shorts. But it was perhaps the blood that was most off putting.

  She gave Ryan one last big-sister glare. ‘Fine. I’ll be ten minutes.’

  Lawson tried really hard not to look as she walked away. She was his partner, for crying out loud. He’d seen her out of uniform hundreds of times. Hell—he’d seen her in a bikini! But he’d already noticed the way her bed-rumpled hair hung loosely around her face and the slight chest bounce as her unfettered breasts had jiggled against the taut fabric of her shirt. The desire to look a bit more was strangely compelling.

  So he failed miserably at the not looking and allowed himself a second or two to indulge in her unselfconscious swagger. The words bite me printed across the backside of her boxers swayed hypnotically in front of his eyes and for a second he imagined just that.

  ‘Er, hello, Lawson? Bleeding here.’

  Lawson startled and dragged his gaze away, horrified at where his mind had been. This was crazy. It was the abstinence. It had to be. Being a sole parent and a shift worker to boot wasn’t exactly conducive to dating.

  He forced himself to focus on the Dunleavy twins, noting the beginnings of red seepage on Ryan’s outer dressing. He helped Ryan into the back of the ambulance and laid him on the gurney using two pillows across the teenager’s chest to elevate the injured hand above heart level.

  He pulled the BP cuff from its receptacle on the wall and wrapped it around Ryan’s uninjured arm. Eighty on fifty. A little on the lowish side. ‘I might pop a drip in while we wait for Victoria.’

  Ryan lifted his head off the pillow and screwed up his face. ‘What? No way. I hate needles.’

  Lawson chuckled. How many times over the years had he tended to Victoria’s brother in the back of an ambulance? ‘Ryan, you just almost hacked off your finger. Do you think one little tiny needle can compare to that?’

  Ryan held his head up for a few more seconds, then let it drop back in surrender. ‘I guess not.’

  Lawson grinned. He reached into the nearby IV drawer and pulled out the things he was going to need. He glanced at Josh sitting in the back passenger seat looking pale, his knee bouncing, his fingers drumming against his thigh. ‘It’s okay, mate. He’ll be all right. Really.’

  Josh looked at Lawson intently and then nodded, his shoulders sagging
, and the fidgeting stopped.

  ‘So, do I want to know how you managed to nearly amputate your finger?’ he asked as he swabbed the crook of Ryan’s elbow with alcohol. There was silence from both the boys and Lawson pressed his lips together to suppress the smile. ‘Hmm,’ he said, uncapping the needle and lining it up with the bulging vein staring at him. ‘That stupid, huh?’

  ‘Ow!’

  Lawson ignored Ryan’s protest as he slid the cannula straight into the vein and got an instant flashback. He taped it, flushed it and set up a drip to replace some of the volume Ryan had lost.

  ‘Vic’s pretty ticked,’ Ryan muttered.

  Lawson looked up at anxious Josh, then back at the more robust Ryan. ‘You probably scared the hell out of her.’

  ‘Will it really need surgery?’ Josh asked.

  ‘I haven’t seen it but if it’s as bad as Victoria says, and she does know her severed body parts, then yes.’

  As if she could hear her name, Vic appeared at the back doors. ‘Righto. Are we ready?’

  Lawson, pleased to see her in something neck to toe, her hair pulled back in its regulation ponytail, nodded. ‘You going to be okay to drive?’

  ‘Sure.’ She flicked a glance at Josh. ‘Buckle up,’ she said as she slammed first one door then the other.

  Lawson whistled. ‘She is really ticked.’ And smiled as both boys squirmed in their seats.

  Vic didn’t bother with the siren. She knew Ryan’s blood loss was controlled and being replaced and that, under Lawson’s care, Ryan was in the best of hands. She trusted her partner implicitly. Hell, the man was an Intensive Care Paramedic; she’d trust Lawson with her life. So there was no point driving like a crazy thing, endangering all their lives for something that wasn’t life-threatening.

  The trip took fifteen minutes and Ryan was seen immediately. Two hours later he was on a ward, prepped and ready to go to Theatre, when Bob strode into the room.

  ‘Ryan Dunleavy,’ he boomed. ‘What the hell were you thinking?’

  Vic, her hand entwined with her brother’s and her head on the bed, catching some shut eye, was immediately alert. Ryan, slightly woozy from morphine and looking like little-boy-lost in his white hospital gown, opened heavy lids. ‘Sorry, Dad.’

  His voice cracked and Vic felt it reach right inside her gut and twist. She squeezed his hand. It obviously had the same effect on her father, who strode across the short distance separating them and enveloped his son in a huge bear hug.

  ‘Bloody silly kid,’ he said, his gruff voice not fooling anyone.

  Bob reached out for Josh and put his arm around his other son’s shoulders. After a few moments he straightened and cleared his throat, placing a hand on her shoulder. Vic knew that her mother dying from a pulmonary embolism a few days after the twins had been born, in this very hospital, had for ever altered her father. As it had her.

  Her father’s heavy hand, his comforting squeeze, said it all. Neither needed words to express how confronting it was to have another member of their family lying pale and silent in a bed in this hospital.

  Bob placed a kiss on the top of his daughter’s head. ‘Lawson, take her home,’ he instructed.

  Vic looked behind her, surprised to see Lawson was still there. ‘It’s okay, Dad,’ she protested, looking up at her father. ‘I’ll stay.’

  ‘No.’ Bob shook his head. ‘You’re done in, Vic. You both are. I’m here now and HQ is sending a replacement to the island to cover me for the next few days. You’ve just come off three nights—you both need to sleep.’

  ‘Come on, Victoria.’ Lawson stood. ‘The boss has spoken.’

  Vic, weary beyond what she would have thought even possible, knew her father was right. She stood and dropped a light kiss on Ryan’s brow. ‘See you in a few hours,’ she murmured. He didn’t stir.

  She gave Josh a hug. ‘He’ll be fine,’ she assured him, knowing that Josh was probably the most worried of them all. She gave her father’s cheek a kiss. ‘I’ll be back later. Ring me if…for anything,’ she quickly amended and then departed with Lawson, too emotional to look back.

  They’d nearly reached the lifts when a female voice pulled them up. ‘Lawson? Oh, Lawson?’

  Vic turned to see the nurse who’d been looking after Ryan. She was young. Younger than her by a few years. Tall and well endowed too. Vic suddenly felt like a dwarf next to the blonde, oh-so-curvy woman who was fluttering her eyelashes at her partner. She couldn’t help but look down at her own rather lacking chest, petite as the rest of her, and sighed.

  The nurse had been flirting with Lawson from the minute Ryan had been admitted. Vic had thought it in rather poor taste, but then she’d been tired and cranky and worried about her brother. Night duty generally brought out her prickly side.

  ‘Hi. Brianna, isn’t it?’

  Vic watched as the poor woman almost nodded her head right off her shoulders, obviously reading way too much into Lawson remembering her name. Lawson remembered names—it was an occupational necessity.

  ‘You were telling me about that great traumatic amputation website,’ Brianna said. ‘Here’s my email address.’ She handed Lawson a piece of paper. ‘Could you email me the link?’

  Vic, pushing the lift-call button several times, just stopped from rolling her eyes.

  ‘Oh, I can write it down for you,’ Lawson offered.

  Vic watched as the nurse’s confidence faltered slightly. ‘Oh, no, it’s okay. You’re off now. Just email me.’

  The lift dinged but not before Vic was privy to the look of frank sexual interest infusing the nurse’s smile.

  ‘Sure.’ Lawson smiled, slipping the paper into his breast pocket before following Victoria into the lift.

  They rode down in silence. Lawson could feel the tension radiating off Victoria, filling the confines of the lift. He watched her surreptitiously as it descended. He knew she was worried about her brother. She had, after all, helped raise the twins from babies. Biologically she might be their sister, but in every other way she’d been their mother.

  ‘He is going to be fine,’ Lawson said as the lift touched down and the doors opened.

  Vic, still annoyed at the nurse, frowned. ‘I know that,’ she grouched.

  She strode out of the lift tired and cranky. At the whole world. What the hell was wrong with her? Females had been making goggle eyes at Lawson the entire time they’d been partnered—why was it bothering her so much now?

  Why?

  Chapter Two

  VIC steamed ahead. She needed to sleep. She wanted her bed. In fact she was already on sandman autopilot just putting one foot in front of the other, counting down the minutes until her head could hit the pillow. The day had been emotionally draining and right now she felt as if she could sleep for a week.

  It took a few moments for her brain to register the fact that the couple a few paces in front of her had stopped to have a passionate kiss. She was almost upon them before the signals from her eyes penetrated her foggy brain.

  ‘Oh, God, I’m terribly sorry,’ she apologised as she pulled herself up just short of careening into them.

  The couple broke off and the woman gave her a dreamy smile. ‘That’s okay.’

  Vic was about to launch into a whole explanation when she realised the man was familiar. A prickle straightened her spine and cleared the fog. ‘Lance?’

  She hadn’t seen her ex since he’d been caught with his pants down and they’d split four years before. Thankfully he’d moved to a hospital on the Gold Coast shortly after their break-up. He was still dazzlingly good-looking and yet somehow he just didn’t do it for her.

  God! She must be tired!

  Lance stared at Vic but recovered quickly. ‘Vic. How lovely to see you again.’ He gave her a decidedly uncomfortable half-smile. ‘Darling, this is Vic Dunleavy.’

  Vic appraised the other woman, a young willowy blonde with an impressively perky chest.

  Good grief—they were everywhere she looked today.

>   ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said politely. Even though she couldn’t have cared less. In truth, she was too tired to care about much of anything.

  Lawson joined them and she immediately felt his hand at her elbow. The comfort of his touch, his superior height and bulk were the perfect emotional anchor and she leaned into him a little. ‘You remember Lawson?’ she offered.

  Lance nodded stiffly. ‘Of course. Lawson.’

  Lawson nodded back not giving a damn whether the jerk remembered him or not. He’d always found Lance a little too pretty for his own good and he guessed it was inevitable that a young, naive Victoria would fall for him. But he hadn’t been surprised when it had ended in Lance’s infidelity.

  There was a moment of awkward silence finally broken by the woman. ‘Hi.’ She held out her hand. ‘I’m Kathy.’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ Lance apologised. ‘This is Kathy. My…’

  Another pregnant pause and then Kathy added, ‘Fiance. I just called in to bring him lunch. Doctors work such awful hours, don’t they?’

  Vic shook Kathy’s hand automatically, noticing the big fat solitaire sparkling in the sun filtering through the atrium skylight. The smile on Kathy’s face was a mile wide and Vic suddenly felt very lonely.

  Every relationship she’d been in had suffered because of her family commitments and she’d learnt early that her situation wasn’t conducive to falling in love. She just didn’t have the time. And then there’d been the inevitable comparisons to Lawson. Maybe in London she’d finally be free to connect with someone…

  ‘Mmm,’ Lawson muttered.

  They made polite conversation for a few more moments and then Lawson intimated they were late for a job, for which Vic could have kissed him. By the expression on Lance’s face, he could have too. No doubt he didn’t want an ex-girlfriend blowing the whistle on his inability to keep his pants on.

  ‘You okay?’ Lawson asked as they headed for the ambulance bay.

  ‘Fine.’

  It wasn’t until they passed a vending machine that Vic realised she wasn’t feeling at all fine. She was light-headed and a little nauseous. ‘You got some change?’ she asked Lawson.